


Ashes and Sweat

by mythomagicallydelicious



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Burning, Fire, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Spoilers Episode 18, by writing this story 8 years late and very behind in the show, caleb's backstory, i found out beau had a last name?? rad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 02:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20499590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythomagicallydelicious/pseuds/mythomagicallydelicious
Summary: Beau has a lot to mull over once she returns to her room, after Caleb has spilled his guts and told some of his terrible past.





	Ashes and Sweat

Beau goes back to her room, kids around with the others for another hour or so. They’re all rowdy and excited after their victory in the pit, despite the bad news of war approaching. But soon enough they all retire to their own spaces and her mind goes back to Caleb’s words. She replays the conversation she and Yasha had had with Trent Ikithon, earlier.

She had meant it, feeling validated by the creeper vibes he’d put out to her. And being right usually felt  _ good _ . 

But tonight she couldn’t feel anything but sick. Her steel stomach couldn’t withstand the words and pictures her mind was displaying. 

Trying to imagine Caleb as anything other than a stinky, dirty, middle-aged hobo was weird. Almost impossible. And yet, an image of the teenagers she’d tried to scare in the alley the other day came to mind. One had had red hair; wild, unkempt. A gangly kid and his friend pursuing something they shouldn’t. It wasn’t hard to splay an image of Caleb’s features over--to imagine a kid like that, with talent, with drive, being told he was special, smart,  _ selected _ \--

Trent’s eyes staring intently over Yasha came to mind, again. How he’d probed her with questions, demanding answers. So exact in his posture and phrasing and authority.

She squeezed the pillow in her hands, the hem threatening to tear as a few threads popped. They were  _ not _ letting Trent anywhere  _ near _ Yasha, if she had anything to say about it. She’d be as loud and brash and defensive as she needed to be. Beau already hated authority, and from Caleb’s story, Trent Ikithon encapsulated everything she fucking hated about people in power, abusing what they had. 

But her fucking mind wouldn’t let Caleb’s words  _ go _ , and she couldn’t focus on her anger at the present enough to slough it off. 

What Caleb had glossed over, the year isolated with a monster, brainwashing kids to be just as monstrous. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, who knew? Children trained to be executioners, praised for their ruthlessness. And tortured for their flaws. 

His voice had been tight, withholding. Unable and unwilling to disclose the rest, and all for understandable reasons. But that didn’t stop Beau from imagining the punishments, the “extreme circumstances.” Starvation, cold, injury, what? Being burned with their own fire? Any and all, or worse, Caleb faced, and all coming from a man he thought he could rely on.  _ Trust _ .

The word  _ trust _ tastes like ash in her mouth as she mulls it over. It chokes her tongue and clouds her mind. Beau is restless. She wants to go back a few hours and punch Trent in the jaw. She wants to unhear what she learned. The burden of knowledge is mocking her, telling her this time, she asked for this. Ran away from the Archive and her shitty dad’s deal with them, only to go begging for information anyway. 

She punches her pillow beneath her head, trying to get comfortable. It splits, feathers spilling out. With a growl she tosses it to the side, getting up from the bed. She makes sure she’s quiet enough not to wake Jester, even in her frustration.

Thinking back to her training, she goes through her forms, wildly fast, sloppy. At the end of the set she takes a breath and repeats them slowly, with care and precision for each motion. When she still can’t clear her mind, she does push-ups. 

100\. Still too much on her mind.

  
200.  
  
300.

After 500 push-ups her body is screaming and sweat is pouring across her body and she’s exhausted. She collapses right there, on the ground, hand reaching out and pulling a blanket from the corner, wadding it up under her head.

When she sleeps, she dreams for the first time in a long time. She dreams of sweat pouring across her face as a fire screams higher and higher towards the sky in front of her, a small house on fire, of a gangly teen with wild red hair calling out a warning, then calling out in fear, head in hands even as he commands the fire larger, the heat starting to melt the robes Beau’s wearing to her skin and forcing the roof to buckle and break as screams echo from within the house. She dreams of one man watching, smirking, with long silver hair and slate gray eyes reflecting the fire giving a small, mocking shake of his head, like a bet he’d made hadn’t panned out. 

She wakes in the morning and goes through her forms slowly, muscles aching. The familiar motions clears her mind and she faces the day. She doesn’t treat Caleb like glass, despite the fragility she knows is still there. She doesn’t complain as much as she wants to at the Archive either, though. It’s a small break, so small she doesn’t think he noticed the gesture. Good. 

And she goes on.

**Author's Note:**

> you know the drill, let me know if I missed a tag.
> 
> Thanks for reading!! Comments/kudos appreciated (but especially those comments haha you know how it is)
> 
> This has been in my drafts for forever so I just figured "might as well!" 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!!


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